{"id":267451,"date":"2016-11-12T07:06:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T07:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=267451"},"modified":"2016-11-12T07:06:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T07:06:27","slug":"egypt-wins-approval-for-12bn-loan-from-the-imf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=267451","title":{"rendered":"Egypt wins approval for $12bn loan from the IMF"},"content":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year $12bn (\u20ac11bn) loan for Egypt to help the country out of its deep economic crisis.<\/p>\n

Egypt will receive $2.75bn immediately, with the rest subject to its economic performance and further reforms.<\/p>\n

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the bailout would “address longstanding challenges”.<\/p>\n

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is facing high unemployment and a budget deficit of 12% of GDP.<\/p>\n

The country has struggled to attract foreign investment since the political turmoil in 2011 and the so-called Arab Spring<\/a>, which saw former president Hosni Mubarak overthrown.<\/p>\n

Tourism – traditionally a leading source of income for Egypt – has declined sharply over the past five years.<\/p>\n

Last week Egypt floated its currency<\/a> in a move that reduced its value by almost 50% against the dollar in an attempt to strengthen confidence in the economy.<\/p>\n

The government also increased interest rates by three percentage points to 14.75%, and raised the price of basic commodities and fuel.<\/p>\n

The moves led to widespread criticism of the president and a drop in his popularity. A big security operation was put in place in Cairo to pre-empt mass demonstrations that had been expected on Friday.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Ms Lagarde said the latest “home-grown economic plan” was intended to tackle the country’s large budget deficit, low growth and high unemployment rate.<\/p>\n

She said that further reforms, such as reductions in fuel subsidies and legislation to reduce Egypt’s public sector wage bill, were necessary for the country to move forward.<\/p>\n

“Resolute implementation of the policy package is essential to restore investor confidence,” Ms Lagarde said.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted by the military, led by Gen Sisi, after only one year in power.<\/p>\n

Mr Sisi was later elected president in May 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n


\n<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year $12bn (\u20ac11bn) loan for Egypt to help the country out of its deep economic crisis. Egypt will receive $2.75bn immediately, with the rest subject to its economic performance and further reforms. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the bailout would “address longstanding challenges”. Egypt’s President Abdul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":267452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[696,13525,13526],"class_list":["post-267451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-egypt","tag-imf-bail-out","tag-imf-loan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}